The present invention relates to a closure system and in particular to closure systems associated with vehicles such as land vehicles, aircraft and marine vehicles. One specific use of the invention would be in automobiles.
Automobiles are known whereby doors of such automobiles include windows which can be power opened and power closed. When a window is being power closed, it is possible for parts of people or children to be get trapped in between the window and window surround. In order for such windows to function within legal and other requirements, it is necessary to avoid applying more than a certain, predetermined maximum force to an arm, finger or other part of the body when that part of the body interferes with the normal closure of the window. Equally, it is necessary to ensure that a sufficient force is available to fully close the window into its seals. To this end, the relevant specifications allow for the limited force to be exceeding once the opening is smaller than would admit entry of any part of the body. Thus in known contact type anti-trap (anti-squeeze) systems a switch, typically within the door seal, is closed when a body part is trapped, and this triggers a decision within a control unit to stop or reverse the closing motion, and thereby release the body part.
Other known contact type anti-squeeze systems rely on an inference trap force from a parameter measurable at the motor such as change in motor speeds, change in motor current or change in output torque, all of which are related to the forces applied to the closure ie the output force of the actuator assembly.
However, due to rough roads or other terrain over which the vehicle may be travelling, primarily vertical accelerations are imposed on the vehicle. These vertical accelerations are applied to the window glass as to any other part of the vehicle and are reacted through the window regulator as variations in closure force. Under some circumstances these variations may produce forces on the window glass which resemble the forces produced when body parts are trapped. Under such circumstances the control unit will incorrectly reopen the window then this is unnecessary. Alternatively when a body part is being trapped, accelerations on the window glass due to rough terrain may reduce the apparent trapping force to below the predetermined level where upon closure will continue and further trap a body part.
Thus situations arise which are inconvenient and/or distracting and are potentially dangerous for the occupants of the vehicle.
An object of the present invention is to provide an improved form of closure system.
Thus according to the present invention there is provided a closure system including a closure moveable for substantially closing an aperture in use, and an actuator for at least closing the closure, the actuator being mounted by mounting means, the mounting means including one or more measurements cells for measuring, in use, parameters of the closure system, in use the closure system being subjected to accelerations and being arranged such that it is possible to at least partially distinguish forces applied to the closure by the actuator from acceleration forces applied to the closure as a result of the accelerations of the closure system by consideration of the measured parameters.
Advantageously this provides for a system wherein mounting means of an actuator are able to fulfil a triple function, namely mounting of the actuator and also measurement of forces applied to the closure by the actuator and also measurement of forces applied to the closure as a result of the accelerations of the closure system.
Furthermore the applicant is the first to realize that the closure and the actuator are subjected to substantially the same accelerations and thus the actuator can be used for determining the acceleration forces on the closure. Once the acceleration forces on the closure have been determined then it is possible to subtract these from output force of the actuator to more accurately determine true trap forces.
According to a further aspect of the present invention there is provided an aperture motor assembly for at least closing an aperture, the motor assembly including measurement cells being arranged such that in use it is possible to at least partially distinguish forces applied to the associated aperture closure by the actuator from accelerations forces applied to the associated aperture closure as a result of accelerations of the aperture closure and motor assembly by consideration of the output from the measurement cells.